I've been in a bit of a fog lately and have just played horrible, gradually working up to my worst score in a year last week, shooting 88. My lack of confidence reached such a low last week that I finally seeked professional help and took my first golf lesson. Fortunately, the lesson was more of a coaching session, and I found it very helpful. My shoulders are more square to the target and my posture has improved. In my horrible round following the lesson, although I played poorly, I hit 4 drives further than I've ever hit a drive before! Just incredible. I'm pretty sure I can work the changes I made with my driver all the way through the bag.


Fog no Itaara Golf by Claudio Marcon at flickr

But my swing isn't the root of my stuggles lately, it's my attention. It's transferred from simply taking aim at a precice target to just trying too hard to get my scores back down. Fortunately, I ran across a helpful article by Chuck Hogan this morning titled "Energy follows attention", which I hope inspires my play today. I've shared an excerpt from his article below.

When you are playing golf, your attention is supposed, and meant to be on ball-to-target. Now those are NOT three words! That is one comprehensive image. And the image includes, by definition, the hit, the trajectory, flight, landing bounce, roll and completion. This is NOT for study by the conscious mind. This is NOT visualizing as the industry has suggested. This is NOT for figuring out. This is simply a look at the ball, target and conditions and LETTING your experience do the figuring for you. You do the same thing in walking, driving, typing and a million other things. Simply allow your attention to do the doing. You do want to deliver this ball to that target don't you?

Without doubt, the golf instruction industry has lead golfers down the road of incessantly interfering with your attention. We golfers are the victims of our own "smart" minds. We somehow got the idea that bringing every nuance of the swing, chip, pitch, sand and specialty shot to the attention of the conscious mind is going to help. In fact, it is the highest form of interference.

Every golfer of experience knows that the best scores and shots "just happen" and "I didn't even think about it". The misinterpretation is that we didn't think about it consciously. The fact is that we temporarily forgot to think consciously and turned the "thinking" over to the subconscious to play the shot (instead of all the concerns of the conscious mind) and low and behold, energy followed the subtle directions of the subconscious. A golf shot was born.

Labels: Articles, Attention, Chuck Hogan, Disciplines

"Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher." -- William Wordsworth

An anonymous reader of my last entry shared a link to Chuck Hogan's website. I mentioned Hogan in a previous post about the "zone", but at the time didn't know who he was. It turns out Hogan has worked for years with golfers of all levels, including several well known PGA and LPGA Tour players, helping them enter the "zone" using a combination of mental and physical disciplines. He provides several fascinating articles at his website, one of which provided insights that I haven't really considered in depth before.


Early morning round by Deano8 at flickr.com

Most fascinating is Hogan's observation that, unlike golf, we perform activities like brushing our teeth, tying our shoes, and driving our car without any thought of how we are doing the doing. He notes that the number of motor skills required for shoe-tying is far more complex than something as simple as the putting stroke. Once the skill has been learned, all that is required is intent to perform the task, and with little attention to the intention. What appears to make golf different from these other activities is that we attach "caring" to its outcome. Hogan suggests that its the caring that blocks the doing.

I've observed that in each of my par or near-par rounds, I was playing without expectations, with my attention focused less on my game and more on my natural surroundings or golf partners. I was "playing" golf. It didn't require intense concentration. It didn't require trying. I didn't experience tension.

Hogan claims that the mainstream philosophy that we must concentrate well to play well may be flawed. He submits that tension is too often associated with concentration and concentration is too often expressed as trying - with a hard, glaring, squinted-eyed stare. Instead, Hogan suggests that "soft eyes", eyes of engagement without tension, are part and parcel to the "zone".

These soft and engaged eyes are sensitive to all of it's surroundings, allowing us to be, as Hogan teaches, entirely free to consume the target and all of it's conditions, such that the golfer is less "hitting the ball to the target" and more "having the target elicit the ball from the golfer."

That sounds like something Shivas Irons would say!

Chuck Hogan warns us to "be careful of descriptions of how it is done. The descriptions of how one person plays great golf may be exactly how you would play your worst golf. Be careful of how it is supposed to be done and become a great student of how you play extraordinary golf. Have your way. You have specific ways that you play your worst and best golf. Become a student of how you work. Notice the subtle ways that you hit great shots and lousy shots. Assume nothing! Be a student of your own process. Know thyself! It might just turn out to be the most fascinating pursuits of your entire life."

With all senses engaged, come forth into the light of things surrounding and creating each shot, and let golf become your teacher.

Labels: Articles, Chuck Hogan, Concentration, Disciplines, Learning